跨性别人士的如厕问题 成为人权新议题

The people of Palatine, Ill., a middle-class suburb of Chicago marked by generic strip malls and tidy cul-de-sacs, had not spent much time debating the thorny questions of transgender rights. But in late 2013, a transgender high school athlete, so intent on defending her privacy that she is known only as Student A, took on her school district so she could use the girls’ locker room.

伊利诺伊州的帕拉蒂诺是芝加哥郊外的中产社区，有着随处可见的商业街和整洁的死巷。那里的居民并没有花多少时间去探讨棘手的跨性别者权益问题。然而，到了2013年底，一名高中跨性别运动员对学区提出了申诉，要求使用女更衣室。她非常希望保护自己的隐私，使用了化名“学生A”。

After the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights ruled in her favor last fall, the two sides cut a deal: Student A could use the locker room and the school would install private changing areas. Some in the community denounced the arrangement; others joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which represented the girl, in declaring a victory for civil rights.

去年秋天，联邦教育部的公民权办公室做出了有利于她的裁决，随后双方达成了协议：学生A可以使用女更衣室，而学校将设置私密的更衣区。社区的一些人对这一安排进行了谴责；另一些人则与代理她的美国公民自由联盟伊利诺伊州分部(American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois)一起，宣称这是公民权的胜利。

Now the whole nation is in a pitched battle over bathroom access, with the Obama administration ordering all public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. Across the country, religious conservatives are rebelling. On Friday, lawmakers in Oklahoma became the latest group to protest, proposing one measure to effectively overturn the order, and another calling for President Obama to be impeached over it.

现在，全美爆发了针对卫生间使用权的尖锐斗争。奥巴马政府签署政令，要求所有的公立学校允许跨性别学生自行选择卫生间使用。对此，全国各地的宗教保守派在加以抵制。上周五，俄克拉何马州的议员成为抗议团体中最新的成员，他们不仅提出了一项实际上会颠覆这项指令的议案，还提出了另一项议案，呼吁就该指令弹劾奥巴马总统。

How a clash over bathrooms, an issue that appeared atop no national polls, became the next frontier in America’s fast-moving culture wars — and ultimately landed on the desk of the president — involves an array of players, some with law degrees, others still in high school.

卫生间问题从未在全美的民意调查中位居前列，如今这方面的冲突却成为了美国快速变化的文化战争的下一个前线——并且最终呈到了总统的案头。这场战争涉及各种各样的参与者，既有拥有法学学位的人，也有仍在上中学的学生。

The sweeping directive to public schools seemed to come out of nowhere. In fact, it was the product of years of study inside the government and a highly orchestrated campaign by advocates for gay and transgender people. Mindful of the role “Whites Only’’ bathrooms played in the civil rights battles of more than half a century ago, they have been maneuvering behind the scenes to press federal agencies, and ultimately Mr. Obama, to address a question that has roiled many school districts: Should those with differing anatomies share the same bathrooms?

这一针对公立学校、影响极为广泛的指令看似来得莫名其妙。但实际上，它是政府内部研究多年的产物，也是倡导人士为帮助同性恋和跨性别群体争取权利而精心策划的一场战役的成果。他们注意到了“只准白人进入”的洗手间在民权运动中所扮演的角色，因此一直在幕后运筹帷幄，向联邦机构乃至奥巴马施加压力，敦促其解决一个困扰着许多学区的问题：有着不同生理结构的学生能否共享卫生间？

The lobbying came to a head, according to people who were involved, in a hastily called April 1 meeting between top White House officials — led by Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser and one of his closest confidantes — and national leaders of the gay and transgender rights movement. North Carolina had just become the first state to explicitly bar transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice.

据参与其中的人士称，在4月1日紧急召开的一个会议上，相关游说到了紧要关节。参会者包括白宫高级官员以及同性恋及跨性别权利运动的全国性领导者。白宫方面的牵头官员是瓦莱丽·贾勒特(Valerie Jarrett)，奥巴马的高级顾问，同时也是其心腹之一。此前，北卡罗莱纳刚刚成为第一个明确禁止跨性别人士根据自我认同的性别使用卫生间的州。

“Transgender students are under attack in this country,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group that is active on the issue, summing up the message he sought to convey to Ms. Jarrett that day. “They need their federal government to stand up for them.”

“跨性别学生正在这个国家里遭受攻击，”积极推进这一议题的华盛顿倡导组织“人权运动”(Human Rights Campaign)的主席查德·格里芬(Chad Griffin)如此总结他那天竭力传达给贾勒特的信息。“他们需要从联邦政府那里得到支持。”

Ms. Jarrett and her team, he said, listened politely, but “did not reveal much,” including the fact that a legal directive on transgender rights that had been in the works for months was about to be released.

他说，贾勒特及其团队静静地听着，但“并未透露太多东西”——也未透露一项关乎跨性别权利的总统令数月前便在筹划之中，不日即将颁布的事实。

When — or precisely how — Mr. Obama personally weighed in is not clear; the White House would not provide specifics. But two days before that meeting, scores of advocacy groups sent Mr. Obama a private letter, appealing to his sense of history as he nears the end of his presidency, in which he has already advanced gay and transgender rights on multiple fronts.

目前尚不清楚，奥巴马是在何时——或者以何种具体方式——亲自介入的；白宫不愿提供相关细节。但那次会议召开两天前，数十个倡导团体向奥巴马发出了一封针对他个人的信函，在其总统任期即将结束之时寻求支持，希望他能创造历史。任职期间，奥巴马已经在多个方面改善了同性恋和跨性别群体的权利状况。

In August, several groups seeking protection for transgender people — including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Education Association and the National Center for Lesbian Rights — issued a 68-page guide for schools, hoping to provide a blueprint for the White House.

去年8月，包括人权运动、全国教育协会(National Education Association)以及全国女同性恋权益中心(National Centerfor Lesbian Rights)在内，若干寻求保护跨性别人士权益的组织，发布了一份面向学校的、68页长的指南，希望可以为白宫提供可资借鉴的蓝图。

At the Department of Education, Catherine E. Lhamon, 44, a former civil rights litigator who runs the agency’s Office of Civil Rights — and has made aggressive use of a federal nondiscrimination law known as Title IX — was taking the lead. The department’s ruling in favor of Student A in November was the first time it had found any school district in violation of civil rights over transgender issues.

在美国联邦教育部，凯瑟琳·E·利亚蒙(Catherine E. Lhamon)牵头展开行动。44岁的利亚蒙曾是一位民权律师，目前是教育部民权办公室(Office of Civil Rights)的负责人，一直在大力使用人称“第九条”(Title IX)的联邦反歧视法。教育部在去年11月做出了有利于“学生A”的裁决，这是它首次判定某个学区存在与跨性别议题有关的侵犯民权问题。

The ruling in Palatine reverberated across the Midwest. In the South Dakota Legislature, Republicans were so alarmed by the situation in Palatine that, in February, they passed a measure restricting bathroom access for transgender students — similar to the one that later became law in North Carolina. Opponents sent transgender South Dakotans to meet with Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican, and they believe that influenced his veto of the bill.

这项裁决的影响从帕拉丁蔓延到了整个中西部地区。帕拉丁的情况让南达科他州议会的共和党人极为恐慌，以至于他们在今年2月通过了一项限制跨性别学生使用卫生间的议案——和北卡罗来纳州那项变成了法规的举措颇为相似。反对者们派了南达科他州的跨性别人士去见身为共和党人的州长丹尼斯·多加德(Dennis Daugaard)，他们认为此次会面对州长造成了影响，促使其否决了相关议案。

Among the visitors was Kendra Heathscott, who was 10 when she first met Mr. Daugaard, then the executive director of a social services organization that treats children with behavioral problems. In his office to lobby against the bathroom measure, she reintroduced herself. “He remembered me as a little boy,” she said.

其中一位造访者是肯德拉·希思科特(Kendra Heathscott)，和多加德州长第一次见面时，她只有10岁，多加德当时在一家救治有行为问题的儿童的社会服务机构担任执行主任。在州长办公室里进行游说，反对实施与洗手间有关的限制性规定时，她再次介绍了自己。“在他记忆里我是一个小男孩，”她说。

In Wisconsin last year, another Republican-sponsored bathroom bill began to work its way through the Legislature, but was beaten back by transgender rights activists, many of them teenagers.

去年，在威斯康星州，另一项共和党发起的洗手间议案被提交至立法机构待审，但在跨性别权利活动人士的反对之下被击退，那些活动人士很多都只有十几岁。

In rural north-central Florida, a retired veterinarian and cattle rancher named Harrell Phillips was alarmed one evening in March, when his 17-year-old son reported over dinner that he had encountered a transgender boy in the high school bathroom.

今年3月里的一个晚上，在佛罗里达州中北部的乡村地区，退休兽医兼牧场主哈勒尔·菲利普斯(Harrell Phillips)吓了一跳，因为他17岁的儿子在吃晚饭时告诉他，自己在高中的卫生间里碰见了一个跨性别男孩。

“I marched myself down to the principal,” said Dr. Phillips, who believes that “you are born into a sex that God chose you to be.”

“我直奔学校，去找校长，”菲利普博士说。他认为“你生下来是什么性别就是什么性别，那是上帝决定的”。

One transgender young man there has been suspended for using the boys’ bathroom. The A.C.L.U. of Florida sued the day before the White House issued its directive, and last Sunday night, transgender activists and their allies held a strategy session in a church — with a sheriff’s deputy standing guard outside because attendees feared for their safety.

在那里，一名年轻的跨性别男子因为使用男生卫生间而自此被停学。在白宫发布指令的前一天，美国公民自由联盟的佛罗里达州分部就此提起诉讼。上周日晚上，一些跨性别活动人士及其盟友在一座教堂举行了一场策略讨论会——有一名警察在门外守卫，因为与会者担心自己的人身安全。

“It’s separate but equal, so they might as well put black and white up on the bathrooms, too,” said Beth Miller, the mother of 17-year-old Mathew Myers, formerly Madison, an R.O.T.C. student in Ocala who came out as transgender this fall by asking his sergeant to permit him to switch from a women’s uniform to one for men. The sergeant accommodated Mathew on the uniform, but the school required him to use the gender-neutral bathroom in the nurse’s office.

“这是隔离，又号称平等，所以他们有可能也会考虑让白人和黑人分开使用卫生间，”贝丝·米勒(Beth Miller)说道。她是17岁的马修·迈尔斯(Mathew Myers)的母亲，后者以前名为麦迪逊(Madison)，来自奥卡拉，是预备役军官训练营的一名学生。去年秋天，他曝光了自己的跨性别身份，请求他的中士允许他脱下女军装，换上男军装。这名中士同意了马修在着装上的要求，但学校要求他使用护士办公室内那间不分性别的洗手间。

Though North Carolina was the first state to adopt a law explicitly barring all transgender people from using public facilities of their choice, many say the current debate has its roots in Houston. In November 2015, voters there repealed the city’s anti-discrimination measure, after a campaign in which the law’s opponents boiled their message down to a five-word slogan. It appeared on yard signs, T-shirts, banners, and ominous ads on TV, radio and the Internet: “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms.”

尽管北卡罗来纳是第一个以法律形式明令禁止所有跨性别人士按自己的意愿使用公共设施的州，但很多人表示，目前这场争论的根源产生于休斯顿。在2015年11月，那里的选民废除了该市的反歧视法案。此前，反对这项法律的人士发起了一场宣传攻势，将他们的意见归结为一条五个单词的口号。这个口号出现在庭院广告牌、T恤、条幅上，也出现在透出警告意味的电视、广播和互联网广告里：“男性禁入女厕(No Men in Women’s Bathrooms)。”

The repeal of the Houston ordinance rattled national gay rights leaders.

休斯顿法令遭废除事件令全国的同性恋权益活动领袖陷入不安。

“I think they have now created a campaign in a box that we are going to see shipped from city to city and state to state,” Mr. Griffin, of the Human Rights Campaign, said in an interview at the time.

“我觉得他们创造了一种简单易行的宣传模式。我们会看到它从一座城市向另一座城市、一个州向另一个州蔓延，”人权运动组织的格里芬在当时接受采访时说道。